A Few Degrees
by AngelsXAmongXUs
Summary: Playing with the theory that everyone is connected to everyone else by six degrees of separation. Instead of personal connections, I use experiences and personalities to tie characters together. Ben 10 characters, requests encouraged. T for possibilities.


**Playing with the well-known theory that everyone is connected to everyone else by six or fewer degrees of separation. However, instead of personal connections, here I'll be using characteristics and personalities to tie characters together. PLEASE request sets…and make them nice and hard for me. XP**

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A Few Degrees

Part 1- Kevin to Mike

And yet, after everything that had happened, all the time that had passed since they parted ways from the leech, he couldn't shake that feeling. It haunted him as he drove Ben and Gwen home, as he lingered outside until both their lights went out—to make sure they were safe. It troubled him as he double-bolted his door for the first time since he got the apartment. It was still with him when sleep stole his mind, and there it remained when he awoke, and this pattern lingered long enough for him to start to think it was a problem.

Mike Morningstar refused to die. Even when he erred with Gwen, he knew it because now that she had a taste of Mike in her system, everything he did wrong was met with a longing stare of _"Why can't you be more like _him_?"_

He always wanted to shout "_Because I'm not _him_! I'm _me_!"_ The words would pool in his mouth like venom, but he would always bite them back. Gwen didn't know he could see that longing. It wasn't fair to her.

Now the stark reality of it was setting in. It had been only a few hours since the Magister had confiscated his Plumber's badge, and yet the emptiness of his pocket was already turning into an emptiness curled up in his chest.

He felt a little guilty about leaving Ben and Gwen alone, but he knew they would get over it. They had made exceptions for his selfishness before, a fact that had always escaped and astounded him. Now he was under the car, tearing up and down its undercarriage, just looking for something to fix, seriously considering running a wrench up at down its length just to have something to do, something to put his attention on.

A vague sense of helplessness was crawling over him, and he knew exactly what he was doing. _Looking for what's wrong with you_, a tiny voice chided from the darkest, most twisted corner of his mind. _Trying to see, trying to understand what makes you fail every time. Searching for something to fix. But what if it's something you _can't_ fix? What if it's something you can't even find?_

A fist of concrete slammed into the garage floor, dimpling the smooth surface with spider webbed cracks. Instantly Kevin checked his anger, putting up the flood gates once again.

But all his mental defense couldn't stop an image of the froglike Magister taking his badge, couldn't hold back the imagined vision of what he had done as soon as Kevin was gone—taken the hard-earned badge in his fast and crushed it, like Kevin himself had done to Morningstar's badge all those months ago.

_We could be brothers_, Kevin thought bitterly, a scowl coming over his features. He couldn't lie to himself anymore. The reason he hated Morningstar so passionately was because the once-perfect teen was crafted in his mirror image.

Both without fathers, both left to their own devices by mother who had better things to do. They had chosen to take to the night, abusing their powers and shunning the rest of the world, resiliently insistent on pulling themselves up by their own bootlaces.

Mike's old words made him shudder: _"You could do whatever you wanted with your powers! Anything!"_ Was that not what a younger, more foolish Kevin had told a younger, more naïve Ben five years ago? Why do good when doing whatever you wanted paid so much better?

And then…then, there was Gwen. From a young, half-realized bout of eleven year old puppy love to a wildly hormonal and all-too-realized affliction of sixteen year old paralyzing _crush_, Gwen had always had more power over Kevin than the whole of the universe's crimelord population put together. A single mention of insulted pride sent him running well against his own grain at the offender. It was like rubbing the spines of a porcupine the wrong way: it made no sense whatsoever, and yet he found himself doing it, time and time again, like a curious dog that just refused to learn.

It made complete sense that Mike would be drawn to the girl's glittering personality and "I-can-do-it-myself" charisma. To Kevin, especially now, it was just another road sign of how painfully similar he and Mike were.

When Mike first pulled off his helmet, Kevin found himself staring into the horrifying maw of a paralyzing case of déjà-vu. Driven by his own greed and recklessness against Ben and Gwen, Mike had been transformed into a ghastly version of himself. Kevin could see the self-hate in Mike's eyes, could understand the bitterness that made him lash out at the cousins with his poisoned, warped form.

He also knew that, somewhere, right now, as Kevin sat looking for something to fix in himself that he would never find, Morningstar was wallowing in hatred.

Because, just like Kevin himself had, Mike was starting to realize that his fate was his own fault and no one else's. He was beginning to adapt to his new life sentence, starting to make use of the ruined form as best as he could.

It sent chills down Kevin's spine to think of this worst enemy following even further the path Kevin had carved for himself, because if that were true, it meant that someday, far into the future or as close as tomorrow, Mike Morningstar would return, either to exact his revenge with the wrath of a thousand underground allies, as Kevin himself had been tempted more than once to do, or to reconcile and try to make his way aiding the group, as Kevin was even now trying to make succeed.

Either way, Mike Morningstar was a threat to all Kevin had. He made a grim vow, then and there, that no matter how similar they were, at the next chance meeting of the two, there would be no traces left of the human mirror for Kevin to obsess over. He wouldn't have to see his own life repeated in another ever again. He would put Mike out of his misery—no one deserved the twisted and conflicted path Kevin tried to follow. Not even his own reflection.

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**So it's going to be a miniseries. Yay. I actually can't wait to see how this pans out—it wasn't going to be anything more than a oneshot until about five minutes ago. SO…**

**Got a pair of characters you think are eerily similar? Just want to torment me to see if I can link two exceptionally random characters? Throw it at me. I can take it. I think…**

**~Angelz**


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